Sending a Fax

Polytropon freebsd at edvax.de
Sat May 7 00:31:42 UTC 2011


On Fri, 6 May 2011 19:09:58 -0400, Jerry <jerry at seibercom.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 6 May 2011 19:50:47 +0200
> Polytropon <freebsd at edvax.de> articulated:
> 
> > On Fri, 6 May 2011 10:30:58 -0700, David Brodbeck <gull at gull.us>
> > wrote:
> > > On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 3:47 AM, Bill Tillman <btillman99 at yahoo.com>
> > > wrote:
> > > Believe it or not, there are industries where faxing is still the
> > > norm. 
> > 
> > Don't just think about "big industries", also keep small
> > businesses in mind - LOTS of them. A manager writes a
> > letter, prints it, faxes it to the secretary, she then
> > types it, prints it, and faxes it back to the manager.
> > In case the manager requires some changes, he phones
> > her, or makes annotations to her fax and faxes it back.
> > Then she processes the changes and faxes the result
> > again. On both sides, it's an inkpee fax. If it's not
> > used heavily enough, it will dry out.
> 
> Are you joking?

No, I'm not. I've actually SEEN that MYSELF, more than
one time, and after asking, I was told that was the "normal"
procedure for correspondency!

Unbelievable you say? Sure, but REALITY.



> Why would anyone create a document, print it and then
> FAX it? I create documents all the time in MS Word and then FAX the
> document directly to the intended recipient. No printing required.

I know this is possible. It would even be possible to use
the normal way of e-mail for that. But it isn't done. In
this specific company, my "house of horrors" where every
sin in IT is "business as usual", pirated copies of incom-
patible versions of "Word" are also typical. Those who
work there are hardly able to do the simplest "tricks"
of cheap word processing, so how could one expect they'd
be able to send an e-mail?



> And
> why would the manager FAX it to a secretary to be transcribed and
> printed then FAXed back?

Because they've "always done that, and it works". Investing
few time into (1st) installing a paperless fax solution
and (2nd) training the employees to properly use it is too
much. So they keep wasting paper, ink, power, money. But
as I mentioned before, they safe a lot of money by using
illegal software. :-)



> There are so many solutions to this that the
> only answer that I can conceive of in this situation is that you are
> describing an office environment from the 60's, unless you were just
> joking to begin with.

Ha! It's of TODAY! And NO joke!



> > You think: Stupid! Inefficient! Expensive!
> 
> Absolutely

Well, _me_ too, but my suggestions is just "too complicated",
and they would be "cost-intensive". You know that the majority
of users who do not have a clue about what they're doing are
resistent to any argumentation and learning.



> > > Many industrial suppliers want purchase orders by fax. 
> > 
> > This has to do with a legal situation in many cases.
> > A fax, unlike an e-mail, is often said to have a status
> > like "letter with receipt", so the statement: "You
> > did get the message." can be made from sending a fax
> > and applying the receipt printed by the fax machine
> > (sending report).
> > 
> > Also printing a text, signing it, and then faxing it
> > makes it look "more legal".
> 
> My legal signature has been scanned and stored so that I can simply add
> it to any document I created sans the whole wasteful printing
> operation, assuming that I do not require a hard copy.

That's the problem. Certain fields of post-use (e. g. tax
matters, insurance issues or documentation in procedures
of law) require a hardcopy. In _those_ cases, it's okay
to use paper. In many other cases, it's just a waste of
resources, and finally of money.




-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...


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